Thursday, December 20, 2012

Last Sunday evening I invited a handful of girls over for a Favorite Things party. I initially got the party idea from a friend but relied on Pinterest for more information. It seems like anytime we have guests over to the Miller High Life house, I'm always so busy running around and talking to people that I never remember to take any pictures. That said, here's the Favorite Things party recap with very limited visual aides.

Invitation draft

As soon as I decided to go through with the party, my first step was to get busy on an invitation. Candace has never let me down before, so as usual I reached out to her for design expertise. While a Favorite Things party can be held at any time for any reason, I knew mine would be somewhat Christmas-y given the time of year. I wanted an invitation that featured some classic Christmas colors but also had a fun girly touch. Enter a Christmas chevron pattern with some hot pink touches- perfection. I had the invitations printed on brown craft paper card stock and tied each one up with red and white bakers twine - an ode to the famous song lyric "brown paper packages tied up with string".

Invites printed and ready to be mailed

I asked each girl to bring 3 of her favorite things, as well as a favorite dessert or appetizer to share. Technically guests should pick one favorite thing, and then buy 3 of that thing, not spending more than $20 total on all items. We had a little confusion about this, but it worked just fine to have a couple of people bring 3 different things. It just meant we got to learn about even more favorite things!

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Food and Favorite Things table

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I wish I had more pictures of the food and favorite things - so many delicious treats and fun things. For my 3 favorite things, I made a little bundle of two of my favorite items: colorful cozy socks (because no one likes frosty feet in the winter) and the best Sally Hansen top coat (dries fast and prevents chips).

Favorite Things bags

Keeping with the "brown paper packages" theme, I bought brown craft bags and tied them with a gift tag that read "These are a few of our Favorite Things". I gave the girls these bags to put their gifts in to take home. Also in the bag, I included a small party favor: a bright colored frame with a quote from one of my favorite Christmas movies!

Framed quote

Since the girls were bringing snacks and desserts, I opted to make a hearty soup and cider. Taking another cue from Pinterest, I had some frozen red rasberries for the girls to add a little Christmas cheer to their wine or wine spritzers. I've shared the soup and cider recipes below.

Crockpot Apple Cider

1 gallon apple cider

4-5 whole cinnamon sticks

1 tablespoon whole cloves

1 tablespoon whole all spice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 orange sliced

Add all ingredients to the crockpot and cook on high for at least 2 hours. Reduce heat to warm and let sit 30 minutes. Serve.

Tortellini Sausage Soup

3-4 links of Italian sausage

4 cloves of garlic

1 onion, diced

1/2 cup water

2 15oz. cans of chicken broth

1 16oz. can diced tomatoes, drained

1 8oz. can totmato sauce

1 cup sliced carrots

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. dried basil

2 Tbsp. dried parsley

2 medium zucchini, grated

10oz. package of cheese tortelli

Remove the link sausage from the casing. Brown sausage in skillet. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is clear. After draining, add this to crockpot. Add all other ingredients except the zucchini, tortellini, and parsley to the crockpot. Cook on high for a half hour. Add the remaining ingredients and continue to cook on high for another 15 minutes or until tortellini is tender. Reduce heat to warm and let sit 30 minutes. Serve.

Delicious cider

Serving area for soup, cider, and wine spritzers

After some eating and visiting, we kicked off the game. As girls came in, I had them write down their name three times on seperate pieces of paper and place them in a bowl. As the hostess, I started things off my drawing three names from the bowl and passing out my favorite thing bundles to the 3 girls. As I distributed them, I explained why I chose each of the items as my favorite. From there, the last name that I drew went next and proceeded to draw another 3 names, making sure not to choose her own name or 2 of the same name. Everyone ended up with 3 new favorite things, and I thought it was so fun to hear about everyone's favorite things as the game progressed. Items ranged from shampoo to nail polish to coffee to wine to etc.

Favorite Things Questionnaire Game

After everyone had passed our their favorite things and received 3 new favorite things, we had one more game on the agenda. I passed of the above questionnaires to all the girls and asked them to answer a series of questions about their favorite things. When everyone was done, we read each question out loud and took turns sharing. If anyone had written down the same favorite thing as you, you crossed it off your list (similar to Scattegories). We continued this for each question on the list, and at the end, the person with the most items NOT crossed off won an additional prize. For our winner, the additional prize happened to be more of my favorite things: a large Bath & Body Works "Winter" candle and Reese's Christmas Trees!

The only picture I got with any of the guests

It was such a fun time, and now that I understand how it works, I cannot wait to host another favorite things party!